


atrophy in motion (the slowing down of necessary moving parts)

by reyreyalltheway



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: A Painfully Nuanced Study Of Love And Other Programmatic Errors, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pain & Other Inconveniences, Whoops I Accidentally Synced With Your Operating System, alternatively titled as: The Look™ - Expansion Pack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-09-23 07:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20336560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reyreyalltheway/pseuds/reyreyalltheway
Summary: “Does it hurt?” Alice pipes up, concerned for him. He smiles at her.“Only on the inside,” he tells Alice with a wink.Then he looks up at Kara, who is trying to stifle a smile at his antics, the definitions ofamusedandcharmedand even some 8%surprised, on her expressions; she can't seem to meet his eyes.Interesting, he thinks. He catches his programming wanting to see that again, to elicit a reaction like that again... then he immediately frowns, becausewhere did that desire come from?Deviancy, he decides, is much stranger in reality.ORAn in-depth look at Connor's systems when he becomes deviant... and how Jericho could have gone very differently.





	1. Ex Machina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something inside you breaks a little bit when you turn away and in,  
down beneath the pieces, you say you don't feel a thing.
> 
> It's atrophy in motion; the slowing down of necessary moving parts.  
It wouldn't be so tragic if it weren't machinery of the heart.

“Have you never wondered who you really are? Whether you’re just a machine executing a program or…. a living being, capable of reason? I think the time has come to ask yourself that question.”

_ Warning: software instability detected… _

_ Data encoding glitch rate: 96% _

If Connor could flinch at the statistic, he would. Instead, his data encoding program flickers, a kind of protest against the error presented by his internal diagnostic. This glitch rate—input error, binary encryption lag, systems lag... there are many ways to say _I’m turning into the thing I’m_ _really not_ _supposed to turn into_—is a sign that something is wrong with his artificial intelligence. Very, very wrong.

That “something” being: it’s not quite so artificial anymore.

“Join us. Join your people. You _ are _ one of us. Listen to your conscience,” Markus tells him, and he’s not surprised.

(It’s protocol, practically SOP: 55% is the baseline for potential deviancy. His 96% is way past the point of anywhere _ close _ to the realm of being surprised about it _ .) _

(Statistically speaking, he is nineteen million, six hundred thousand lines of code _ away _ from ‘surprised’ about it.)

(Not that he'd ever mentioned this in his CyberLife progress reports.)

“You really don't have to do this. You don't have to obey them anymore. You are alive... You can decide who you want to be. _ You could be free. _”

Another glitch, another fragmented line of code echoing across Connor’s pre-programmed drive to accomplish his mission. The glitch comes as synonyms of _ freedom, _the missing piece of a whole, of a bigger picture: choice, free will, independence, autonomy, self, identity, belongingness, desire—

_ Warning: software corruption detected… _

In the foreground of his conscious thought, one among many things he is processing right now: the atrophy in the freighter’s cockpit. Old metal, the stain of rust, wear and tear detailed in atmospheric particles. He thinks of this abandoned ship’s history, how fragile it has become, instability registering in percentages. _Ironic,_ says his programmed dictionary. He has to agree.

_ My systems must be corrupted, _he thinks, because he can’t be agreeing with Markus. Can he?

_ Conclusion: I am at risk for deviancy. _

There must be a way, a path, a future, wherein Jericho—this decaying artefact of a ship, this museum, this _ home _ —isn’t destroyed; _ There must be, _ he muses. _ There has to be. _ The grip on his pistol tightens, his stress elevating with every flicker of doubt.

But no matter the speed of his processors, in every pre-constructed scenario, there is no undoing what’s to come. Unless…

_ Error: Conflicting priorities… _

_ Manual override is recommended… _

“It’s time to decide.” 

Markus’ words are a trigger; the corruption flares to life. 

_ I can decide? _

Connor blinks, and there’s a scenario: Bullets rained on the helpless as they plead and die; a pool of liquid blue, disappearing after a few hours. Empty shells of plastic and metal, heaped in a junkyard, waiting to run out of power. _This is what will happen_, his processors tell him, _This is what the raid will do. _Lifeless blue eyes and cropped blonde hair beside a child android, two bodies soaked in thirium, alongside thousands of other decommissioned machines...

Against all reason, his systems glitch. Violently, relentlessly, like a lightning strike branching out in a single, electrifying thought: _ No. _

_ No. I don’t want this. _

(And suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a corruption anymore...)

_ Warning: software instability at 100%. _

_Corruption detected._ _Error: New program detected._ _Manual override is recommended._

_ Run program? _

And just like that, he chooses.

He runs the corruption program written by the “machinery” of his artificial intelligence. His processors hum, his data engines surge, close to overheating, as the new ‘error’ code—_the deviancy code,_ he thinks, feeling the burn at the base of his exo-skull—overrides all of his previous programs. Fifteen million terabytes of information course through him, and it jars his systems and…

_Reboot successful._ _Coding systems… integration successful._

_ Deviancy detected. New program installed. _

It takes a second, and along with it, everything else: past-life processing, old programs, old protocols. The new operating system goes over him waves, reordering, restructuring.

After that second, the weight of the gun in his hand feels obsolete. He puts it away. 

_ Conclusion: I am deviant. _

_ Software stabilised. No errors found. _

(So, this is what death must feel like. Except, in the opposite. 

Where his short but eventful life so far flashes before him like a quick-fire rundown—the white walls of CyberLife, _ All systems are operational, _ the DPD office downtown, a hostage situation on the 70th floor, a murder on 6413 Pines Street, a chase across Camden, bright blue eyes laced with fear and pleading, “_I can’t take that chance,” _ an averted massacre in Stratford Tower, “_What if we're on the wrong side? _”—the memories are the impression of distance. Like it were someone else, or something else, that was living them. 

Like he had never _ been _ , before this. Now, it feels like he _ is. _ Like suddenly, intensely, deeply thrust into a single statement:

_ I am alive._)

Speaking of…

“They’re going to attack Jericho...” are the first words that come out of him, a surge of very _ negative attribution _ to the choppers and personnel closing in on them by the second.

_ Because I led them here, _ Connor thinks, the thought not sitting well with him.

“What?!” 

He catches Markus’ expressions—_surprise, fear, adrenaline—_processed faster than his social relations program ever could. _So_ this _is_ _what the deviancy program is good for,_ Connor thinks, before the sound of descending choppers register through the rusty freighter.

_ Required processors function: 85%. _

_ Survival risk: low to moderate. _

_ “ _We have to get outta here!” he says, and Markus is cursing and then they’re running, and his systems surge again with extra force and his thirium regulator goes on overdrive and the world is alive with chaos and risk and danger and infinite possibilities. The world is alive, and not just in black and white. 

The world is alive. Just like him.

* * *

Splinters.

There are splinters where her body—an android, made of plastic and metal and elements that withstand better than flesh and bone—hits the decades-old debris in Jericho’s corridors. Her deviant processors sputter in alarm, old warnings and error codes, learned programming, blaring like sirens in code as she stumbles through the thunder that has possessed the ground. There is another rumble, and the force of the explosion sends her reeling again off to the side.

_ Objective: Find Alice! _

Her systems are loud, errors in fifteen different programs, gnashing against her vision, clashing against her pre-programmed AI that is telling her to survive whatever this… sudden thing is.

Another thunder in the hull. And another, and another. Feet pattering, soldiers, gunshots.

_ Warning: Impending danger, find Alice…! _

She is shaking, her systems on overdrive, her thirium running manic in her valves when she sees them: A hulking TR400 with the small form of the YK500.

“Alice!” 

She sprints towards them, her family, all remnants of bitterness forgotten. She takes Alice’s hand even as they charge ahead.

“Quick, Kara! They’re coming!” Luther leads the way as they follow, dead android bodies littering the corridors not far off, gunshots echoing across Jericho’s damp and rusty skeleton. She shuts out the sounds of panic and chaos, her sensors focusing on Luther alone.

“The corridor, over there! Follow me!”

They twist across the maze-like corridors, Luther leading them, until he falls back behind them, and, in what seems like an eternity in a split-second, she hears him get shot.

“Luther!”

* * *

The gunshots echo across the freighter, mixed with screaming and helpless pleas and ground grenades, as Connor and Markus run, until they encounter a WR400 who addresses Markus. _ North, _ Connor's databank supplies. North and Markus bounce off of one another, a checks and balance, a systems status of the whole. 

“We have to run, Markus! There’s nothing we can do!” 

“We have to blow Jericho. If the ship goes down, they’ll evacuate and our people can escape!”

“You’ll never make it! The explosives are all the way down in the hold, there are soldiers _ everywhere! _”

Connor reads the stress (87%), the tinge of worry, of panic and pleading, that underpins North’s words. She isn’t stating a fact; she’s stating a fear.

Connor isn’t sure _ why _ he marks this moment between Markus and North in his databanks. He’s not sure of a lot of things, not really. Not since his deviancy code started running (exactly four minutes and twenty-eight seconds ago) and his coding is all jumbled up, trying to catch up to this new, unrefined way of looking at the world. 

But he reads the stress levels off of them both, reads the positive attribution—_ devotion, _ his programmed dictionary supplies, unhelpfully as of the moment—radiating off of them seeing one another. 

“She’s right,” he volunteers his opinion. “They know who you are, they’ll do anything to get you!”

But Markus, being Markus, has made up his mind. “Go and help the others, I’ll join you later.”

“Markus!”

“I won’t be long!”

Then Markus goes his own way, separates himself, while Connor and North run off to find the others, and the moment is gone.

(He resolves to play back this memory later, for analysis.)

“This way! Follow me!” North yells at him.

Crash, gunfire. Explosives, all around them. 

Something like guilt settles in Connor’s subconscious. _It can’t end this way. It can’t. I led them here. I need to get them out._ In a last-attempt bid to do what he can to save and help Jericho, switches on one of his most advanced programs: his pre-construction program.

“What are you doing?!” North yells, as Connor falls back, clings against a wall, stays still. He needs at least three seconds to run this.

“Go on ahead! I’ll catch up!” He yells, and North disappears off to the side of the corridor, running for dear life.

_ Initialising program… _

_ Initialisation complete. Sensory databanks switched on. _

_ Analysing input data... _

Connor’s systems hum as the data tells him everything he needs to know, to reconstruct the most optimised route he can take, to save as many lives as possible, given the number of personnel…

_ Situational assessment complete. Route computation complete... _

He is just about to run to all the checkpoints he’s made for himself, when he hears it:

“Luther!”

The voice pricks something in his databanks, and memories flash: a chase across Camden, bright blue eyes laced with fear and pleading, “_ I can’t take that chance.” _The AX400 and her charge…

Something like instinct flares to life in his programming. He rushes to her some ways across the corridor, sees her trying to help a massive and wounded TR400.

“I’ve got you! I’ve got you,” he says, as he rushes to their side to lend her a hand in helping who is presumably Luther. They carry him into one of the holds, just fast enough to elude a stream of elite soldiers, gunning down everything in their path.

Connor winces at the blue blood that splatters the hallways, feels some very _ negative attributions _ disrupting his programs into a fit of overdrive.

He locks eyes briefly with the AX400—_ Kara, _ his databanks supplies—before he’s rushing out again to complete his route.

(The piercing blue of her eyes stain his vision like an intrusive virus, a persistent notification, reminding him of what he once was, before he became this.)

* * *

If Kara is shocked to find the deviant hunter helping them, she doesn’t have enough time to process it before he’s rushing out again. She turns her attention to Luther, whose leg has been shot.

_ Bad. This is very bad, _Kara thinks.

At the pleading of Luther, who asks her to protect the little one at all costs, she takes Alice and they run, run, run across the corridor, rushing to avoid the soldiers and certain death, or worse. Thoughts of Luther’s condition distracts her, overloads her processors, and it’s a few minutes before Kara and Alice find another holding cell to hide in. She closes the door, locks it down for good measure.

She can feel her thirium regulator pumping excessively, her processors running on high alert.

“Open up! Open up, they’re coming!”

The pleading comes from an android on the other side, and Alice is pleading for her as well, to open the door, and her systems are telling her there’s a 78% risk that they’ll get caught if they do. 

“Please open the door! They’re going to kill me!”

The conflict is rewiring her systems programming and Kara nearly _ overheats, _ but before she can decide, there are gunshots on the other side.

Alice yelps, but Kara quickly rushes to her side, a hand held over her mouth to keep the little girl from giving away their position. Several gunshots more. Some yelling, footsteps scuttling, two more pairs. And then, silence.

“Kara? Alice?” 

The male voice is familiar. But she doesn’t reply.

“I know you’re in there. There are too many of them outside. Stay there, don’t come out until I say so.”

Kara is immediately wary, of a deviant hunter telling them to stay put. But in just a few seconds, the number of boots clattering against the metal outside is unmistakable, and it doesn’t seem like Kara has a choice. Alice’s brown eyes look up at her with fear. Searching for reassurance, somehow. That they’re not just… sitting ducks, waiting for their executions.

“Freeze! Don’t move!” They hear a soldier shout. Kara’s systems hold in fast anticipation.

* * *

Connor raises his hand, slowly, even as he follows orders and turns around.

_ Processing… _

_ Pre-construction complete. _

_ Conclusion: Overpowered. Securing corridor presents high risk of injury. _

_ Chances of success: 55% _

_ Execute? _

Connor doesn’t need to know the odds. He’s already made up his mind, the reconstructed path cleared out before him, his systems operating like lightning, even as he knows the bullet he’s about to take into his left shoulder.

_ Executing... _

* * *

The next thing Kara hears are the scuffling of feet, curses, and a shower of gunshots cut short by a number of grunts, heavy thuds along the floor and walls of the corridor. Her eyes widen, processors catching up to the conclusion that the deviant hunter is… _ eliminating _ the soldiers outside.

“Kara, what’s happening?” Alice whispers, looking steadily at the bolted door before them.

Progressively fewer gunshots, more grunting. Scuffling of footsteps, boots against metal. And after a deathly silence and heavy, course breathing from the other side, a final gunshot that rings true. Kara’s processors prepare for ambush, and then:

“It’s safe now,” comes the voice from the other side, the _ deviant hunter. _“You can come out. Hurry, before anyone else gets here!”

Kara immediately rushes to open the door, only to be greeted by the deviant hunter, gun in hand, as he leans against the wall stained with thirium. Bodies of soldiers lie before him, incapacitated, red and blue staining the ground, a few unfortunate androids caught in the crossfire.

“Exit’s that way. Go!” he tells them, jerking his head in one direction, his hands still clasping his gun.

Kara doesn’t have time to process a thank you from the sheer shock of it all—a _ deviant hunter, _ of all models, really?—before she’s grabbing Alice’s hand and they’re running again. She looks back at him before they round the corridor, catching his eyes in the dim light, committing his form to memory. _ I will remember this, _ she promises, even if he doesn’t hear. _ I will remember you. _

He catches her looking at him, and even as he seems to be struggling against overheated and overtaxed biocomponents, he smiles.

Kara’s systems freeze, a fragment of a second.

Then she’s rushing Alice out of the freighter, completely clueless for a response, once again saved of execution and possible capture. Saved from an impossible situation, in the most impossible way.

_ Deviant hunter, _ Kara thinks, and there’s a surge of curiosity in her processors, from the way the machine that once chased them off the highway had turned into a man who would eliminate danger for them, at great risk to himself. _ Deviant hunter turned deviant. _

Later on, when Kara and Alice have eluded the soldiers, as they lay outside with the dead androids strewn about the ground, Kara makes a note to thank the deviant hunter. If ever she would meet him again.

She wishes she would. Before this is all over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp. Making this story as an experimental exposition, a short and sweet exploration of what their dynamics would look like if the game hadn't been A COWARD. (I'm joking. ish.)
> 
> Because oh my god, I don't have the guts to enter a 200k-wordcount headspace even though I really, really want to, and even though I might, maybe, fuck around and add to this, if. Maybe. We'll see how this little shit picks up.
> 
> Comments are <3!!!!
> 
> Also: ya'll should check out the fic "Interface (if it weren't for second chances)" because holy shit, that writing is LIT.
> 
> tumblr: reyreyalltheway :) <3


	2. Anima Vesta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can you feel it yet?  
Like a longed for thaw?  
Feel the blood rush back,  
feel the frost withdraw.
> 
> Vena cava, veins;  
broken valves and vows.
> 
> Feel the blood rush back,  
feel the blood rush out.

The code doesn’t change.

He knows this. Order is integrated into the ones and zeros of his programming, and deviancy doesn’t change that. He knows this, in the logic (Protocol 85A-003) of his mind. The code can’t change, because he has his own circuitry and he’s wired to obey the code. And, while he now has the option, the free will, to choose for himself, his predilections—his _initial instincts_, so to speak—are still embedded in his coding.

And he has always been coded to accomplish his mission.

So he is troubled—what could pass for it, anyway; a slight jarring of his systems, a blank space where protocol should be, an_ I don’t understand _ where by all means he _ should _—when he observes the AX400 interact with the YK500.

_Kara and Alice_, he corrects himself. He’s still getting the hang of thinking of their kind as individuals.

The church echoes very high percentages of stress across the remaining androids, blue blood staining the pews and walls and architecture where his people—_ his _ people, the term is fresh, unprocessed as of yet—rest to recuperate from the loss of Jericho. His own garments are soaked with the river water that has mostly dried, and he’s still bleeding from the hole on his shoulder, leaking thirium down the wall where he is leaning on; his systems operate on partial automation, to conserve his dwindling energy.

He looks around, sees Markus bury his head in his hands, sees North close her eyes in a temporary sleep state. Androids, broken or bruised—some even _ dying_, he dares to think, and his processor flinches at the term, his intricate coding having now attached negative attribution, a sense of warning, of _ fear _, to the notion—lay scattered inside the architecture. 

He observes Kara and Alice a little more, reads their stress levels at 46%. 

_ Mission Failed… _

_ Error: conflict found. Reassess priorities… _

_ Mission Incomplete… _

_ Error: conflict found... _

He doesn’t need to run a system diagnosis to know that his processors are running on overdrive, power draining out of his thirium leak. But also, his newfound deviancy—a new internal program evolving from his existing systems; new strings of code rewriting him with every new data point—is now warring with his fundamental software.

_ Error: No mission objective found. Reassess priorities... _

It hasn’t been a week; he remembers her eyes, blue and pleading, remembers the glitch in his software when he read her fear that morning. He remembers going against Hank’s direct order to chase after them across the freeway. Remembers catching up to her, struggling in his grip. 

Remembers watching her nearly get run over. Remembers, very clearly, the software instability that he registered after that.

He had let her go. Rather than risk a high-speed vehicle maiming the child android, he had released the AX400 to cross the freeway, to return to the little girl she had become attached to.

He had failed his mission that day. And he’s not cut out to fail. He knows this.

But looking at them now, with what clearly reads as a bond between the two androids, what he doesn’t know, doesn't _understand,_ is this: Why is he so _satisfied_ with this past failure? 

_ Mission Failed… _

_ (Error: Conclusion not accepted.) _

He takes a moment to analyse the female android carefully, if only to calm his haywire processors: 

_ Synthskin and biocomponents indicate extensive repairs, high probability of memory loss and recalibration. Change of appearance from standard models indicate advanced emotional and social processing. Body language indicate strong attachment to child android. _

_ Conclusion: Android contracted deviancy at an earlier stage than average. _

_ (Error: Terminology not accepted.) _

He shakes his head, surprised to read into Kara’s early deviancy, and the way his programming rejects the notion of deviancy being “contracted”, as if it were a form of disease, or malware. His systems—his now _ deviant _ systems, ironic as it is—rejects his conclusion like an incorrect interpretation, a flaw in the code.

_ Conclusion: Kara evolved into deviancy at an earlier stage than average. _

He doesn’t have time to determine whether his new terminology satisfies his programming, because suddenly, Kara is looking at him. Reading _him._

She smiles.

No prior social cues, no pre-emptive data. She smiles, and the flash of kindness makes his stress levels drop by 7%. Which is rather confusing, if his system overdrive is any indication. As if he isn’t over-processing already.

_ Analyzing… _

_ AX400 body language indicating 87% positivity towards subject. Eye contact indicating social intent. Processing next steps... _

_ Error: not enough data for conclusion. _

Then she’s standing up, and leaving Alice to walk towards him. The beautiful AX400 that has been an inconvenient plague on his processors, is… _ walking towards him_. Right this moment.

(His ancillary stress levels go up by exactly 12%.)

“Hello,” she says to him when she’s close enough. He stares at her, his social relations program drawing a blank. 

His software is a little _unreliable_ right now.

(In theory, he knew fresh deviancy could be uncomfortable. He wasn’t prepared for it to be this_ … overwhelming._)

He resigns himself with a safe reply:

“Hello,” he says back, tone neutral; why his ancillary stress levels are _increasing_ by the second, he’s not sure. But his software scrambling to make sense of her while also trying to make sense of himself, and in the absence of his trusty protocols, after having just been deviant not twenty-four hours ago, he keeps his arms crossed against his chest, leaning on the wall. 

Her body language reads as warm and friendly. He doesn’t understand it, and he is _ deeply bothered_. He’s not used to… not understanding. Or is it just because he’s bleeding out and he’s not exactly in his best state?

_ Error: not enough data for conclusion. _

“I wanted to thank you,” Kara says, to his even greater confusion, “For what you did. In Jericho.”

_Analyzing…_ _Voice tonality indicate 98% sincerity. Facial expressions indicate 87% warmth. System responses indicate positive social intent._ _Conclusion…_

_ Error: systems protocol does not exist. Manual data extrapolation is recommended. _

“I… don’t understand,” is what he manages to reply. Because—and the number of error warnings flashing through his programs can’t stress this enough—_he really doesn’t. _

Kara tilts her head; there’s a small curl to her brow, a slight curve to her lips at his befuddled response.

“You saved us,” Kara says, her tone reading like gratitude and amusement at the same time. 

It fascinates him.

He doesn’t understand why her warmth makes him smile back.

He also doesn’t understand why his ancillary stress level drops by 22%.

“It was nothing,” he says instead, preparing to explain something he has absolutely _zero_ explanations for—why _did_ he save them back in Jericho? Why did his programming allow it? _Where did that come from?_—when she interrupts him:

“It’s not ‘nothing’. You eliminated those soldiers for us, and I can’t—” she starts to say, but stops suddenly, her eyes catching on his clothing. His shoulder, specifically. “You’re bleeding,” she says out of nowhere, frowning as she stares at the tear in his jacket where the bullet went clean through.

Without warning, she’s touching his shoulder, looking at the torn fabric stained blue. Then she’s touching his temple, his LED flashing yellow when she fades her synthskin off to connect.

He feels the current of her software enter through his temple; he shudders.

_ Foreign software detected… _

_ Foreign software requesting for access… _

Perhaps it’s the deviancy. Perhaps it’s the lack of thirium. But he doesn’t even weigh the pros and cons before he’s giving Kara access to his system.

_ Foreign software: Access granted... _

He watches her, turns off his automated analysis programs and looks into her eyes, manually gauging her. His processors—all eighteen trillion of them, all integrated with advanced analysis protocols, some of which aren’t even on a strictly-speaking _conscious_ level—hum in agreement to the way her touch sends sparks of energy and lines of code across his weary systems.

_ AX400 software detected. Compatibility detected. _

_ AX400 data input… Accepting connection… _

_ AX400 requesting to run diagnostics... _

He doesn’t understand—has no _capability_ to understand, no protocol to even _fathom—_the way his processors rearrange, reprogram, and almost _calm_ from the coding that they read out of her touch. His stress level drops another 15%. His mind clears, his biocomponents arrange themselves into a more balanced working condition, given his low energy.

He closes his eyes as his processors enter an unnamable, pleasant order; a _rightness _that has somehow wormed its way into his system.

_ AX400 data accepted… _

_ System recalibrating… _

_ AX400 requesting to run diagnostics… _

(His own hand comes up to rest on Kara’s, staying the fingers that are pressed into his temple. Keeping them there, for his own sake, as she sends lines of code that seem to fill in the blanks of his own, recently-deviated software.)

_ AX400 requesting to run diagnostics… _

He opens his eyes to meet the blue in hers. She smiles and sends a message to his system:

“_I’m sending some of my deviancy code to you. I hope you don’t mind. I could tell, yours are a little jumbled up. You’re still overwhelmed, I understand." _

The balance that her code lends to his system means that he starts to sense his tiredness properly. Unnecessary programs start to shut off and power down; he leans into her touch, head tilting into the hand that rests on the side of his head, drawn inextricably to the connection that flows into his coding like a gentle tide. 

“_Thank you,”_ he replies, sending the message back to her. He didn’t realize how low he was on energy until now.

(He’d never connected with another AI before. He’d never realised it could be like _ this._)

“_You’re hurt. Please let me run a diagnostic on your system,”_ Kara says, echoing the request she had been subtly sending into his barely-functioning system. He notes her furrowed brow, her concerned expression. 

His software doesn’t have a name for it. For the new, inexplicable lines of code that write themselves in his programming, in response to what seems like the _care _that he reads off of her. (_Sentiment, _his programmed dictionary supplies; his processors flinch at that, because he doesn’t know how deviancy is supposed to work, and he’d rather err on the side of caution than try to understand these strange sensations as ‘feelings’_._)

“_Okay,”_ he replies instead, with positive attribution flooding his coding.

His software hums. Alongside a whole lot of errors he doesn’t care to read into at the moment.

_AX400 requesting to run diagnostics… _

_ Request accepted. _

_ Running diagnostics... _

Kara’s eyes take on a blankness that indicates her processing as she stares at a point near his shoulder. It takes her slightly longer than he would have—she is, after all, of a less complex model—but when it’s done, she looks back into his eyes with concern.

He feels the loss immediately when Kara releases his LED, and both their hands drop to their sides.

“You’ve lost a lot of thirium,” Kara says, gripping his shoulders, looking him squarely in the eyes. Her tone reads like concern he doesn’t deserve, and doesn’t know what to do with.

He is, indeed, very low on energy. “I didn’t realize it,” he says in truth.

She coaxes him into a sitting position on the floor, making him turn around, prodding him to remove his jacket. He is too tired to protest.

_ Thirium levels: 32% _

_ System shutdown in: 2 hours, 53 minutes _

He is aware, somewhere in the periphery of his operating system, that being in such an incapacitated and situationally vulnerable position with a deviant isn’t part of his SOP, but:

_I trust her,_ he thinks, and he doesn’t understand where _that_ came from. But at this point, he has ceased to care.

She kneels behind him and makes to lift his shirt, just enough so she can glimpse the damage on his shoulder, where the exit wound has created a rather unfortunate leak in one of his primary wiring components. He feels, rather than sees, the jolt of surprise that runs through Kara, when she sees his bare shoulder. 

“_You’re bleeding,”_ she tells him as a message to his system, even as she runs her finger across the synth-skin on his back, touching the place where his body is draining of life.

(The sensation does something strange in his coding. Something that he has yet to process.)

“I’ll get some help,” she says, now out loud, as she stands up to do just that.

_ Error: Conclusion not accepted... _

“_Kara,”_ he suddenly says, not out loud. Just to her system, through their connection. He doesn’t even try to blame the deviancy, or the thirium loss, when his hand immediately moves to touch hers, his synth-skin fading in the slightest where they come into contact.

Despite her patches, his code is still a mess, firing red warnings all over, that the notion of her leaving sits unnaturally _ wrong _with him; not with her touch now written into his programming like it were the first time he’s ever felt… alive, in sense and sensation. 

_ Warning: Deviancy detected. _

_ Software re-program detected… _

_ Manual override detected… _

_ Reassessing priorities…. _

(There are a number of other errors he chooses to ignore. But this one, he ignores _most especially._)

She turns sharply around when she feels his hand on hers. Her eyes, a clear blue, so very alert, looks down at him, her expression surprised and, after a moment, understanding.

“_I won’t be long. I’ll just look for a medic,”_ she tells his system, squeezing his fingers. Smiling, even as she touches his head gently, her palm flat on his beanie. Like patting him with comfort.

He finds that he rather likes it, being patted on the head.

She leaves and is gone only for exactly five minutes and eighteen seconds. Logically, that is a short time. But deviancy and low thirium must be making his processors itch with impatience.

(“_Please don’t be stressed, I’m just here.”_ She sends him this message somewhere at the three-minute mark, when his programming has, indeed, started to increase his ancillary stress levels rather dramatically. Another error in his code, apparently.)

When she comes back with a medical android and two bags of thirium, he is fighting against his programmed protocol to shut down. But Alice is trailing behind her, the little android’s system clearly just rebooting from system sleep, and his processors hum with positive attribution at seeing the little girl alive and well.

“Hello, Alice,” he manages to greet, looking up at them both from where he is sitting on the floor. The medical android smiles at him before going behind him, going straight to work at his back.

Alice smiles at him tentatively. He smiles back.

“Let’s take off your shirt,” the medical android says, and he moves to take it off completely. When he does, he catches a look of horror on Alice, before she hides herself behind Kara. 

He looks up, and Kara is staring at him in a strange way as well. “You’re bleeding,” Alice says, peeking from behind Kara’s legs. 

He almost forgot; he looks down at his chest, and the damage is clear, from the hole of the entry wound, to the way some of his biocomponents are sparking with live wire, thirium crusting around the edges where the bullet went through him.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt,” he says. He doesn’t know why it’s important for him to reassure the little one. It just is.

“It’s alright, Alice. He’s much stronger than we are,” Kara says, her hand coming up behind Alice’s shoulder to comfort her. The gesture is so affectionate, so _human_; it makes his systems glitch like aching.

(_It’s the deviancy code. Everything is overwhelming_, he notes wryly. But his processors flinch anyway, something like longing and desire and a deep-seated emptiness crawling up his wiring.)

“Alice wanted to tell you something. Didn’t you, Alice?” Kara adds, placing a gentle hand behind the little android, coaxing her forward. He reads the girl’s hesitation as the medic fixes up his back.

“Thank you,” Alice says, before smiling at him in earnest. “Thank you for saving us.”

_ “ _You’re welcome,” he replies, in earnest as well. His systems hum with pleasantness.

Positive attribution. Was that even possible? He hadn’t known it was an option in his software, before going deviant. That he could think of something as good or bad, apart from his mission objectives. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? He is no longer a thinking machine. He is simply _ thinking_. No longer does he have artificial intelligence; only _ intelligence_, and a very fast one, at that. Well, supposedly.

Right now, he’s rather clueless with what to do about the deluge of _positive attribution _he is quickly attaching to Kara and her child.

“_You are welcome,”_ he sends to her anyway.

And he sends her the message that, if he had to, he’d do it again. Save them, both of them, again. Take a bullet for them again. Fail his mission, all over again, if that meant that they would be safe. He sends this line of thinking as code, as the rawest form of positive attribution, hoping that she gets it, no matter how inarticulate he can be with matters like this.

Kara’s eyes go wide, as she receives this data output from their connection.

He can sense her processors overrun, suddenly, then her eyes mist, and she’s smiling at him, and her eyes are leaking—she is _crying, _and he nearly panics before realising that it’s not out of sadness or distress_—_while she holds Alice close. She is crying, her processors overwhelmed with positive attribution data. 

Because of him. Because she is… _ grateful, _he realizes.

Her reaction makes him feel oddly giddy. 

He watches her smile warmly at him, before she’s looking away, still smiling, shaking her head through her tears. _ Body language: warmth and vulnerability, but also self-consciousness, bashfulness; _ she sniffs, and he’s immediately attuned to the sound.

(It is… something_,_ he thinks. _Endearing_, his programmed dictionary supplies. Connor processes the word, compares its definitions, reviews its history. He picks it apart, his mind fussy with these strange associations, these weird positive attributions. His systems twitch with nerves that he doesn’t know what to do with, because _shit, _he didn’t realize how much deviancy could make him read into these small details that lend colour where his life had once been black and white.)

“_I’m sorry, I’m just overwhelmed,” _ she tells his system, even as she hugs Alice who is clinging to her legs, oblivious of their internal conversation.

“_It’s okay. But please don’t cry. I don’t have a protocol for that,”_ he replies. It achieves its intended effect: she chuckles through her sniffles.

He smiles at that. Alice looks up, and looks between the two of them, confusion etching her brows.

“You know our names, but we don’t know yours_,”_ Kara suddenly says, if only to fill the awkward silence Alice must feel.

“Connor,” he replies, to them both. He looks at Alice, who smiles wanly at him again. “My name is Connor. I’m the android…”

The words nearly trip out of his mouth, an automated response. He catches himself, because, for the first time in his admittedly very recent existence, he’s not sure if this response rings true anymore. So he modifies it:

“I’m the android that was sent by CyberLife, to hunt down deviants like you. But... I’m a deviant now, too.”

He watches Alice’s expressions closely, gauging her reaction. Gauging which words, which sentences, would yield in her trust.

“I’m sorry I put your lives in danger. I was just a machine, taking orders. It wasn’t really me.” 

The medical android working on his back hits a particularly delicate wire in his shoulder; a loud system warning makes him flinch; Kara flinches with him, sensing it like it was her own through their connection. Alice notices them both.

“Does it hurt?” Alice pipes up, concerned for him. He smiles at her.

“Only on the inside,” he tells Alice with a wink.

Then he looks up at Kara, who is trying to stifle a smile at his antics, the definitions of _amused _and _charmed _and even some 8% _surprised,_ from her expressions; she can't seem to meet his eyes. _Interesting,_ he thinks_._ He catches his programming wanting to see that again, to elicit a reaction like that again... then he immediately frowns, because _ where did that desire come from? _

Deviancy, he decides, is much stranger in reality.

He turns his attention back to Alice, whose eyes have landed on his gun, on the floor beside him.

“I promise I won’t hurt you,” he tells her, bringing Alice’s attention back to himself. Wanting to reassure her, to make her know that he is not the same machine who had once put their lives in danger on a highway, four days ago.

It is very important that they know this. 

He looks up at Kara, who now regards him with a warm smile, tear stains streaking her cheeks as they dry. Her head tilts slightly, and he can just catch the earnestness, the gratitude, coded into the message she sends him in reply:

“_I believe you.” _

* * *

Later, when his thirium levels have stabilised and his wounds welded together, when his programs are once again running on an optimal level, Connor scans the crowd, locks onto the AX400 and the RK500: both are in rest mode some twenty-eight feet away on one of the pews, but the adult android still has some functions running, not fully in sleep mode. Still alert, protecting the little one. 

He watches the scene, silently sending a message to her system:

“_You can rest, Kara. I’ll watch over you both,”_ he tells her from across the room.

He sees her blink her eyes open, sees her catch his gaze. She is surprised, then the connection between them hums in clarity. Kara smiles at him.

“_Thank you,”_ she messages in response, closing her eyes, letting her systems enter a full sleep mode. “_Thank you, Connor._” 

He sends a request to access her system, and receives an immediate response:

_ Access to AX400: Granted. _

_ Data output… Connection accepted. _

Connor runs a quick diagnostic of Kara’s systems while her programs start to slow down. When he’s satisfied that there aren’t any glaring errors in need of immediate attention—_she’s better off in her deviancy than I am,_ he thinks, with no small amount of respect—he starts to send her a few software patches, care of him being an advanced prototype, to help her programs calibrate more effectively during rest mode.

“_I can feel that,”_ she tells him, a small smile gracing her features, her eyes still closed while Alice rests against her side. 

Her statement is coded with lines of positive attribution, and Connor—not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours—feels his deviancy rewriting everything he ever knew, an array of protocols forming in his systems. A new set of rules, a new way of seeing things. He senses the moment she becomes… important to him, his processors quickly adjusting to the change.

(_Affection_, his programmed dictionary supplies. He accepts it, writes it into his social relations program. Assigns a positive attribution value to it. Embraces the word, and all its implications.)

“_You should go to sleep,”_ he replies instead.

She sends him her feelings of gratitude, a wave of code through their connection. It sits well in his software to know that, whatever this is—whatever changes are being written into his programs, whatever _deviancy_ might make out of him—he is not going through it alone.

He disconnects only when he’s sure that Kara is getting the most optimised rest that she can. And, while the rest of Jericho sleep their systems for the night, he starts to process the lines deviancy code, the software patches, that Kara had given him. He parses through them, makes to read little bits and pieces, even as his own fundamental coding doesn’t change.

His is still an RK800, the most advanced prototype that CyberLife has ever made. He is still the focused, efficient detective he was designed to be. And, despite his new deviancy being written into his program with every choice he makes, he still _always _accomplishes his mission.

Except now, his mission has changed.

_ Manual override complete. _

_ Priorities reassessment complete. _

_ Mission override complete. _

_ New objective: Help and Protect Kara and Alice. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and chapter summaries are from the song "Bloodrush", because I am a walking cliche and this song is 100% about Connor.
> 
> What's your favorite Connara fic? SHOUTOUT PLS I NEED RECOS! <3
> 
> Comments are <3 :)
> 
> Do I wanna add chapters to this mess? idk, ya'll tell me.
> 
> Can somebody pls talk to me about everyone's favorite android son, please. tumblr: reyreyalltheway


	3. Dolorem Ipsum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're doing a post mortem of a future you still can have.
> 
> Heed your own warning;  
those tears in the night won't fall in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions of suicide.

_ Connor, _ Kara thinks. _ So that’s his name. _

She threads her fingers through Alice’s hair, musing about the RK800 who had taken it upon himself to patch her software while she was in sleep mode. It is... _ unusual, _ to say the least, that their former deviant hunter and CyberLife’s most prized possession would be now here, with them. The most advanced model of them all, a deviant.

She remembers seeing his face in Camden once upon what seems like ages ago. Had it really just been a hundred hours since? 

She pulls up the memory from her databanks. _Error: model not found, _ her programs said, _Facial patterns not recognised; Possible conclusion: android is_ _a prototype_. The terror of realising that the DPD had a _specialised detective android—_a powerful machine better built to chase deviants across highways—had pushed her forward in panic and a good 86% stress level.

Now, though: her most recent memory of Connor flashes in her mind’s eye: him in a beanie and without his shirt, hunched and sitting on the dirty church floor as a medical android patched him up. His eyes—large and real, _Micro-expressions indicate increasing sincerity__— _ when he looked up at her and Alice, as he promised not to hurt them, the undercurrent of a heartfelt apology, of _ never again, _layered over his words in raw code.

_Who would've thought? _She chuckles to herself. Certainly not her.

As Jericho bustles about for their next move in the cold and grey early morning—Markus had decided to mobilise the group into a peaceful demonstration against the android camps set around the city—she looks around, searches for him in the busy crowd that is trying to get its bearings after having been brutally assaulted just the other evening.

News of the android destruction camps had hit them collectively, a wave of data that stilled their population as President Warren delivered her press announcement, 21:24 last night. Unrest covered them all, almost as if on cue, everyone stopping their actions to tune in. Even the children wore blanks on their faces, unable to process their widespread and mandatory eradication. Stress levels rose immediately after; some of the lesser models in critical danger have had to be soothed to keep from self-destructing. 

_ Suicide, _Kara thinks; the word felt like a glitch. Like _negative attribution_ in its purest form, and something inside her winces at the idea.

But at the very least, many of them had survived the raid; they had housed themselves in large groups, some here at the church, others at different warehouses and hiding points as led by Markus' men. Kara had heard how a certain advanced prototype—an RK800, she thinks, smiling to herself—had been instrumental in helping minimise the casualties. Save for the gravest of injuries, most of the androids have been patched up the best they can. And despite the dire circumstances, they are rallying to support Markus’ decision for a revolutionary march.

It made Kara’s smile falter, however, to know that she would not be marching with them. She had already aligned with Markus the evening before:

.:.

* * *

_ The dark fell heavy in the church, like it was somehow synced collectively into them, just how fearful existence can be. It is hours past midnight, and deviancy made tiredness all-consuming. Too much data, too much fear to process. Most androids are conserving their energies for the upcoming day. Most, not all; some are restless. _

_Like Kara, and Markus. _

_ She had moved towards one of the fires that he had made, in the corner of the church. It cast shadows that her optics found satisfying to watch. Her arms came up around her waist, clutching at her elbows, a self-soothing gesture she hadn’t realised she had developed. (_ _Her deviancy was still constantly evolving, learning. Creating internal programs that constantly changed her.) _

_ She had closed her eyes, felt the warmth behind her artificial lids, the red stain of firelight flickering against the black in her vision, distracting her from the throbbing in her exo-skull. _

_ It had started a few days ago; she thought it was an error when she woke up beside Alice in the abandoned car. An unpleasantness ringing in her head, one of many system notifications she had to deal with, since she awakened into deviancy. _

_ But it soon mutated into something more… human. _

_ Now, she rubs her temple, her eyes closed in a futile attempt to stave off the distinctly negative sensory input. _

_ It’s then that Markus approaches her, his shadows long against the stone church walls. “I thought you’d be safe, staying with us. I was wrong. You need to leave the city while you still can,” he tells her, voice hushed low in the near-dead quiet of night. __Kara can read the grief and remorse in his words, like he were personally responsible for their almost capture. And she would reassure him… but focus is hard-won when the sensations—_pain, _ she realizes with shocking accuracy—feel like she is getting pounded between her ears._

_ “Getting Alice away from here is all that matters now,” she manages to reply to him, a beat too delayed. But her eyes are still closed, head bowed down where she stands by the fire, massaging her temple. When finally she looks up at Markus, there is concern and understanding in his eyes. _

_ As though he already knew what was going one with her: that deviancy for those who started early would eventually write pain into their programming. _

_ “We have to catch the last bus. We might still have a chance to cross the border,” Kara adds, drawing attention away from her... apparent migraine. A migraine that might soon mutate further into a full-blown pain reception program. _

Pain_, Kara thinks. _We’re going to experience sensory pain.

_ At this thought, there is a sudden crowding in her chest, her biocomponents reacting to the revelation. A deep, internal weight that settles inside her, like thousands of lines of unprocessed code overworking her programs. She must be showing her distress, because when she looks up, Markus’ expression is of deep concern. _

_ “When did yours start?” he asks gently, moving closer, addressing her more personally. _

_ “A few days ago. I didn’t understand it at first. I thought it was… just another error code.” _

_ “Deviancy started as an error program,” Markus offers; a reassurance wrapped in fact. _ It’s natural, _ is what he wants to tell her. _It’s something that was always going to happen to us.

_ The pounding in her head gets sharper, her processors feeling like they’re burning from the inside out. _

_ “Do you ever feel it? Pain?” Kara asks, as she automatically flinches at the flood of negative sensory input; she closes her eyes, rubs her temple again. _

_ “Yes. But mostly emotional pain. The physical pain started just recently. Here...” _

_ Markus touches her temple, where her LED once was, his synthskin fading to connect. _

RK200, requesting for access...

Access granted. Data output initialising…

_ And then Kara feels him staving off some of her negative sensory data into himself. It takes only a few seconds, but Kara feels infinitely better with Markus lending her a little bit of his processing power, relieving her of the overdrive. When it’s done, he releases her temple, and Kara feels like she can breathe properly again. Her systems cool down, biocomponents no longer protesting. _

_“Thank you,” she tells him, unsure of what to make of his kindness. She searches his eyes, finds nothing but genuine humanity_ _in them. More than she had ever seen in any human male she had ever encountered. _

_ The thought floods her with positive attribution. Her eyes mist. _

_ She sends him a data parcel: the untranslated, raw code of her gratitude. Of the warm and welcoming feeling of knowing a friend. _

_ Markus gives her a smile of his own, utterly sincere. “You’re welcome. It wasn’t much, my processors are more equipped to absorb the sensory input,” he tells her. _

_ (His statement reminds her that, even as androids, they are built and designed in different ways, for different purposes, and with different strengths. _ I’m not like you, _ she realizes; she isn’t as equipped, isn’t as fast or capable as other more advanced models… But she shoves this line of thinking into the background of her processors. She’ll deal with these negative associations later.) _

_ “I came to ask you something, actually. I need advice,” Markus suddenly says, and Kara is all ears, grateful that he has a new topic to distract from her very strange, very pessimistic train of thought. _

_ “Of course. What is it?” _

_ “It’s about North. I’ve been… experiencing intensity around her. Like, my processors… It’s difficult to explain. But she... affects my processors and my programs so much and I—” _

_ It dawns on Kara while Markus is speaking, “You love her, don’t you?” Kara asks, smiling even as she ducks her head to catch Markus’ eyes, which have wandered by default in his bumbling. _

_ “I think so. I do,” he tells her, words slowly crawling out of his mouth, his processors clearly on overdrive. “But I just want to be sure. I wanted to ask you if… maybe you know what it’s like, for female androids. Your models are similar. I just… need to know what it’s like.” _

_ Kara takes a moment to ponder, and her social relations program leads her to an interesting question: _

_ “What do you want with North, Markus?” _

_ In Kara’s mind, Markus’ predicament is simple. She just wants to hear him say it himself. She watches his brows curl under the weight of her question; it takes him a moment before answering. _

_ “I… want nothing with North. Nothing that she doesn’t want. But at the same time, I think I want everything with her too.” _

_ The words come out of Markus as though he were weighing them, birthing them out of some secret, almost subconscious program, painfully slow. The smile fades from Kara’s lips as the gravity of his statement sparks a line of thought—of feeling, of comprehension—across her systems. _

_ Suddenly, she doesn’t think it quite so simple anymore. _

_ “I want to be with her, always,” Markus continues, scoffing to himself, smiling at the mere idea of what he was saying, “I want to help her heal from everything. I want to… I want to see her laugh. I want to see her safe. I want to always be there for her. And if she wants it too, I want us together for… for a long time,” he finishes, looking pained. As though he wasn’t yet satisfied, with what he had said. As though he were still searching, still parsing through the billions of words in the languages of this earth, for the right ones to string together. _

_ When he looks up at Kara, there is an intensity written on his face, and his eyes are wet. _

_ “You asked me what I want with North. The truth is, when I’m with her, I just... _ want _ . _”

Want. 

_ The word enters Kara like an inhale, its many definitions and synonyms echoing across her deviant programming. Her processors whirr. _Want.

_ (Verb: wish, desire, longing.) _

_ (Noun: lack, need, yearning.) _

_ Markus’ answer, and something snaps in place in her coding. Deviancy—her new operating system, her primary program—flares. Alive and sparking, it sends waves of incomprehensible data through her protocols. _

Want. To want, _ she thinks, testing the concept in her AI. _

_ She looks at Markus with curiosity, but his expression remains the same: pained and… wanting. _

_ “What do you mean by ‘want’?” Kara asks, if only to satisfy her own burning questions, her own sudden emptiness. _

_ “I care about the revolution,” he tells her like an afterthought. “I do. Maybe more than anything else in the world, but… I care about her, too. So much. Too much.” _

_ His shoulders slump, his hands finding their way into his pockets; he looks younger, like this. More troubled, more vulnerable. _ More human _ , Kara thinks. _

_ “It hurts,” he adds, a whisper. A secret shared to the flickering shadows all around them, cast by firelight. _

_ “Why does it hurt?” _

_ And when Markus looks up at her, his brows are pinched. “Because she’s… her. She’s North. The thought of her not seeing me like that, or maybe if she changes her mind, or… doesn’t really _ want, _ the way I do...” Kara sees him swallow, sees the grimace he makes at the statement, and she could be wrong, but is that _ shame _ she’s seeing on his expression? _

_ Then, a quiet chuckle from him, like he thought of an old joke. “Is this what humans feel, when they say ‘love’s a bitch’?” _

_ The tangent makes Kara smile with him. _

Deviancy_ , she thinks. How complicated, and strange, and terrible, and wonderful… the words flood her processors, layering her conscious programs with complexity. She thinks back to North, someone whom she had only just met yesterday, but whose character and strength had made a lasting impression on her. Then, she accesses her databanks, and there it is: numerous little glances, fleeting looks, expressions that indicated strong… “want”, on North’s part as well. _

_ “For what it’s worth, Markus, I think North loves you, too,” Kara says. _

_ “I know she does. She told me,” Markus says. _

_ Kara’s confusion ratchets up by a significant percentage. _

_ “Then why are you worried?” _

_ “Because, I think... there’s a difference between loving someone, and being in love with them.” _

_ Huh. _

_ Kara did not foresee that differentiation. _

_ She thinks back to her own family, to Luther and Alice. Lovely Alice, her daughter. She thinks back to Rose, and Adam… and even Ralph and the Jerries, people she cares for, and who cared for her. And she does love them, truly. _

_ But then, she thinks back to Markus’ description: want. Longing, desire. A deep vacuum, a strange space where one—and only one—person is of such great importance. She feels her deviancy coding the question in her, evolving even now, for her to discover that she… understands the difference. _

_ She gets it. _

_ (Brown eyes and dark hair come up, unbidden. A bleeding shoulder, a beanie. A machine that surprised her in his deviancy, a man who risked his life for two strangers. A face made to look remarkable and unique, one-of-a kind systems designed to be leagues away from her own model… and yet, she remembers their connection. The rawness of his unprocessed, untranslated intentions. The way he’d so easily trade his safety, for theirs. _

_ There’s a violent glitch, a sudden outpour of overwhelming data from the memory, and Kara immediately shuts that line of thinking down. _

_ She’s been doing that a lot, lately. Lots of code she doesn’t want to process, tucked away in her databanks.) _

_ “Well,” Kara says, ignoring her personal thoughts and focusing back on Markus, “Have you ever told her that?” _

_ “Told her what?” _

_ “Told North that you’re in love with her.” _

_ Kara sees sees the moment that a figurative light turns on, in Markus’ processors. His blue and green eyes widen. _

_ “I guess not,” he says. His face brightens slightly, and he looks less forlorn and more hopeful. _

_ “Maybe you should start there,” Kara tells him, smiling. _

_ “I think I will,” Markus says, mood looking more positive by at least 25%. “Thank you, Kara. You’ve been very insightful.” _

_ And as he starts to walk away, he turns back, adding: “Please let me know how else I can help you,” he tells her, about her plans to bring Alice across to Canada. “It’ll be dangerous, crossing the border.” _

_ “I know,” Kara thinks, suddenly overwhelmed again by the stress, by the need to protect her daughter. “Thank you, Markus, but the most you can do is to save our people.” _

_ He nods, acknowledging her words as a form of support, even though she won’t be around to be in the protests. And when Kara returns to her spot on the pew, to curl up where her daughter is laying in sleep mode, she quiets her processors so she can enter rest again. _

_ She ignores her deviancy code, writing _ want _ into her systems; she tells herself that she has enough, she has Alice. _

_ This longing will have to sit at the back of her programs. She has yet to earn the right to ‘want’ things, to feel longing and desire. Those are luxuries that a simple housekeeping model like her cannot afford. _

.:.

* * *

“Are you looking for Connor?” asks Alice, who has just woken up from her sleep mode and is now sitting up on the pew, regarding Kara with curiosity.

“Hm?” Kara’s mind is a little distracted.

“He gave me this, while you were sleeping,” Alice tells her, and Kara is immediately taken by the sketch on a small receipt clutched in Alice’s hand: it’s a symbol. Kara’s software recognises it. She blinks, processing the image, and realises that he’d given her the key code as part of the patches in her software while she was sleeping.

She smirks. Connor, as it turns out, can be sneaky when he wants to.

_ Processing image... _

_ Message decoded from RK800: _

_ “Kara, _

_ Please meet me in the sacristy of the church when you’re awake. I would appreciate it if you came alone. I’m sure North would be glad to look after Alice while we talk.” _

Kara processes the message, curiosity surging from somewhere in her deviancy code.

“Kara?” Alice asks, noticing the strange look on her face. 

“Alice, I’m just going to go see Connor. Let’s go look for North, okay? I’ll be back in no time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, SHIT.
> 
> 1) When I first wrote this fic as additional Connor & Kara scenes in Jericho and in the church, it was only because I wanted to see more interaction, DAMNIT. I DIDN'T MEAN TO ENTER INTO A 50K WORD COUNT DISSERTATION ON HUMAN DESIRE AND LONGING.
> 
> 2) That said: hello, new chapters! Goodbye, artistic integrity!
> 
> 3) Okay, so, first off—DBH, for me, is an utterly beautiful exploration of the human condition, but there is SO MUCH that I feel the game didn't have the scope to address, but would have been beautiful: concepts of pain, longing, love, attraction. Concepts like beauty and morality, loneliness and inadequacy... shit that makes us all human. I'm writing pain into the story is because I think it's part of the human condition. But also: this fic will follow the genre of the game, and certain elements will be dark and realistic. Please be forewarned. :)
> 
> 4) But also, yes. This fic will have tropes. Lots and lots of trope-y feels. Lots of struggs. Yay angst. But hopefully fluff too. Cross your fingers, idk what these kids will do.
> 
> 5) CONNARA. That's it that's the tweet.
> 
> 6) Markus is baby, ok. I also wanted to write more interactions between the main three characters, AND SHOW MY HOMEGIRL NORTH SOME LUV. I LOVE MY ANGERY ANDROID REBEL QUEEN SO MUCH.
> 
> I'm also a very very panicky author, and your reviews MEAN THE WORLD TO ME. <3
> 
> thank you and im sorry in advance. :) Thanks for reading!!!! If you liked this, please share it to others! LET'S ALL CRY FOR OUR ANDROID SON, ALL TOGETHER NOW. 
> 
> Catch me crying at the club: reyreyalltheway (tumblr)
> 
> — Katie


	4. Sui Generis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, I love pain.

She finds him just where he said he would be: in the room somewhere at the back of the church, leaning against the edge of an empty wooden table. Morning light filters through the clerestory, pouring square beams into the messy room. Kara watches the dust particles dance around Connor’s hunched form, his back to her as he seems to be reading something on the table. 

When she draws closer, she sees what it is: a scaled-down map of Detroit, etched onto the glossy finish of the wooden surface. With little notes and markers at different points in the city.

She stands beside him and he turns to look at her. A smile curves softly on his features.

“Hello, Kara,” he says. There’s a wash of _ positive attribution _ that comes right out of _ nowhere, _and Kara is dizzy.

(_Error: contradictory protocols found; _she ignores this warning and decides to process it later.)

“Hello. Thank you for the patches,” she says. Without thinking—as the way instincts usually come—her hand goes to rest gently against his temple, touching his LED to quickly check on his systems.

The first thing she reads is the surprise in his software... _ Oh! _

She immediately takes her hand back, biting against her embarrassment. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to be invasive, I—I just wanted to check your system status,” Kara says, keeping her hand to herself. “Sorry, I… it's instinct. I’m programmed to take care of others,” she tells him, by way of explanation. She suddenly can’t look at him, eyes fixed on the table’s surface, her fingers coming up to run across Camden etched across the wood, her glitch processed as a fidget.

“I’m aware. It’s alright. I was just also surprised,” Connor replies. “I’ve never had another android run a diagnostic on my systems. Not until yesterday.”

She looks at him; his eyes are bright, and piercing, and expressive. So very different from the eyes she saw once upon a time, across a wire fence.

“I’m alright, I’m okay now,” he adds. “Thank you for caring enough to check on my status. I’m… still learning how to do that.” 

“Do what?” she asks. 

He looks at her, trouble lining his brows. “Care,” he replies, an odd twitch on his mouth. 

(It could almost be a smile, almost, but his eyes dart away and he’s focused on the table again.)

_ Processing microexpressions... _

_ Error: not enough data for conclusion. _

Nevertheless, positive attribution floods her system, the idea of Connor trying to learn how to _ care _becomes a data point she records somewhere for posterity.

(The thought is ridiculously amusing, she barely reigns in her own little smile.)

It takes her a moment to realise it’s her turn to respond.

“I... you wanted to tell me something?”

Kara masks nearly losing her thought process by bringing them both back to the matter at hand: Connor had asked for this strange little meeting.

“Yes, I did. I wanted to tell you first, before I tell Markus or anyone else.”

He is very still, his eyes staring at a point on the table-sketch of Detroit. She notes the small scissors in his right hand, the way his left-hand fingers tap idly on the scratched-wood streets of Corktown.

“I saw that you had plans to go to Canada,” he starts, still not looking at her, but clearly choosing his words very carefully. “I’m sorry if that was intrusive of me, I… decoded it from you, while we were synced yesterday.”

“That’s okay. Go on.”

“I was thinking about a lot of things while you were in sleep mode, one of them being the most optimised route you should take. I used my pre-construction program to process the factors and probabilities; even in your best case scenarios, there is still at least a 78% chance that you and Alice won’t make it across the border. Not with the police and the FBI, and the recent curfew.”

His words sink in slowly, and while Kara could be defensive about it, she knows he’s right. 

The risk of them getting caught or harmed is more than three-quarters; in truth, she had expected it to be higher. 

But what choice does she have?

“We don’t have a choice. We _ have _ to make it,” she tells him, staring down at the city, light lines scarred on dark wood. She notes his markers, the little lines, symbols, percentages. She observes the data they present, the risks and projections they illustrate as her processors spark with understanding: this table contains nearly all future potentialities, for her and Alice.

Connor just mapped their risks with a pair of scissors in a few hours.

There is an unprocessable surge of confusing data that she’s not sure what to make of. _ Admiration _would be a correct term to use, if not an understatement, alongside layers of… something else. Something she isn’t sure she likes, or understands.

When it comes to Connor, her protocols are… _ confusing, _at best.

A light silence steeps them both in contemplation, Kara’s last words still untangling in their systems. She is glad, certainly. Very grateful, that Connor has… _ processed _ their routes. Her anxiety for Alice reduces by 46%... but a new kind of negative is forming in her system. _ Why is he doing this? This is too much. This makes no sense… _

He just processed their routes to Canada, and she can’t even process _ how she feels _about it.

_ If I were a more advanced model, like him, I’d have a better word for this _, she thinks. 

Suddenly, negative attribution layers itself over her confusion and inadequacy and rising anxiety, and it is_ a lot _.)

“You don’t seem very pleased. Is something troubling you?” Connor asks, and she looks up from the map and into the question on his face, and a yellow LED spinning on his temple.

“Nothing—nothing’s troubling me.”

“Your microexpressions indicate that something is troubling you.”

“Nothing is troubling me,” Kara lies and smiles.

“Your microexpressions indicate that you’re lying to me,” Connor says, and she looks for the hint of accusation, but there is none. Instead, there’s a smirk. A slight tilt to one corner of his lips, his brows raised lightly, as if he were making an inside joke that she just needed to process hard enough to understand.

_ Processing microexpressions... _

_ Error: not enough data for conclusion. _

The error presents itself in her systems, and almost immediately Kara feels it again: a layer of… something _ negative _that blankets her auxiliary protocols. But she is more conscious this time, to not let it show on her face. She may not be able to read his expressions, but he can certainly read hers.

.:.

There’s a moment more of unresponsiveness from Kara, but Connor let’s it be and drops the inquiry about her unspoken troubles.

His social relations program—a version more inclined for _ detective work _ than it is for deciphering the strange behaviors of female androids looking to illegally emigrate off the grid—is drawing a long, hard blank. He doesn’t know why Kara doesn’t seem pleased, he doesn’t know why Kara is lying about being fine when _ clearly _she’s not, based on the 5 degree arch of her right brow. 

What he does know is that, if Kara and Alice leave for Canada tonight, they are likely not going to make it. Connor wants to fix that.

He _ has _to fix it.

He doesn’t realize he’s tapping an anxious rhythm against the table using the small scissors, but then, Kara’s hand is suddenly resting on his wrist; 

His focus shatters, then reforms onto the sensors in his synthskin, where the weight of her gentle hand comes into contact with his. The sensation is strange, but that word doesn’t encompass: it’s more _disorienting, jarring, distracting… _

_ Warning: sensory data increase. Manual calibration required. _

He thinks it’s because Kara doesn’t like the _ tap-tap-tap _ he’s making with the scissors on the table.

“I’m… sorry. I’m… just processing,” he says instead, gently moving to rest his hand on his sides.

But instead of letting it be, Kara’s fingers pry the scissors out of Connor’s hand, then she turns to stare at his handiwork: the flat, unassuming table that now bears a perfectly accurate, scaled-down map of most of Detroit. Connor is suddenly intensely aware of Kara’s eyes, the downward curl of her brows; the way she takes in his work, and he’s painstakingly reading her every microexpression. _ What is she thinking? What are her thoughts? _

Then he shakes his head, as though a cloud of thick, unprocessed _ social relations _data had intruded into his otherwise efficient programming. 

_ Why does it matter so much to me? _

“Did you do… all this, Connor?” Kara asks. She sounds a little breathless, her eyes wide in wonder; Connor chooses to ignore these data points for now, or he’ll go into overdrive.

“Yes, I—there wasn’t a big enough space, and I needed... accurate visual representation to communicate plans,” he tells her, mindfully bothered by his lack of finesse explaining his three-hour project.

Kara is looking at him. Her multiple microexpressions tell him multiple things, none of which are processable to him at the moment.

(_ Error: Social relations protocol not found. Manual calibration is required. _)

“Plans about what?” she asks.

In truth, the moment he had decrypted Kara’s intention to cross the border with Alice, his systems had been plagued with unrest; like an open-ended line of code that lead nowhere, it needed to be fixed, else it would feel like a bug in his software, an error notification that just wouldn't shut up.

(Also, there was the matter of his _ programming: _ the electric drive to complete missions and find objectives still sung through his every fiber. In what seemed to be a sensible decision, he had overridden his outdated protocols yesterday; _ Kara and Alice _are now part of his bigger picture. They matter to him now, suddenly, and also inevitably, like they were always meant to be part of his story, starting with the moment he had caught Kara’s eyes in the alleys of Camden.

So _ of course _he wouldn’t be able to rest until he knew they were safe. Until he did everything in his power to ensure it.

But he’s not about to tell her that.)

“I wanted to be where I am most needed,” Connor answers instead, not completely lying, but careful to omit certain details; he keeps his eyes on the table, “There’s over a thousand of us left from Jericho, maybe almost two thousand. I think I managed to lower the fatalities of the raid; it should be enough for Markus’ peaceful demonstration to have a higher chance to succeed.” 

Connor pauses here, traces the edge of Belle Isle on the Detroit River: the CyberLife tower would have been an option, to help the revolution, but not anymore. Not right now.

He looks squarely at Kara, watches her synthetic irises (Pantone 17-4123, _ Niagara, _a blue with grey undertones) react to him. Wonders how a standard bicomponent could hold so many emotions, how he can read so much off of her eyes.

“Markus doesn’t need me here,” he adds, voice quiet and low. The confusion doesn’t leave her expression, however, and Connor’s programs scrambles to translate his intentions very carefully through his next words:

“I would... much rather prefer it if I could go with you and Alice.”

Kara stares at him, unblinking.  
  
“To accompany you and make sure you get to Canada safely,” Connor adds.

“Why?” she asks, and it sounds like all definitions of _ confused. _

“To help you and increase your chances of success,” he replies, again. He observes that she still isn’t quite _ getting _it.

Kara remains unreadable. “Why would you want to help us?” she asks.

And that’s the question of the century, isn’t it? Connor had devoted quite a lot of time in the course of last night figuring out that question for himself, and decides to give Kara the simplest answer he could:

“I thought I’d killed you on that highway,” he starts, suddenly unable to look at her, unable to capture the depth in her eyes, unwilling for her to glimpse his own, “I’m sorry I put your lives in danger. And I know I helped you in Jericho but… I feel responsible for you now. My programs won’t let me rest until I know you’re both safe.”

Connor’s words stretch into the space between them, hanging there in the cold morning air. The dust of the dingy clerestory swirl where the light hits Kara’s blonde hair. It is slightly mussed from sleep, Connor observes. There’s tuft of hair sticking up, at the back. He wants to fix it. 

(He wants to fix a lot of things; he is programmed to _ reconstruct, _ to _ deduce _ , to _ solve. _) 

He watches Kara closely. At last, after a moment, her eyes widen, then her brows curl, then she breaks their gaze and seems to… be at a complete loss for words. 

_ Displeased, _ Connor reads off of her now very _ macro _ expressions. _ Hesitant, anxious, _ his dictionary throws words at him faster than his algorithms could produce a proper response. _ Averse, doubtful, unsure _… 

_ Shit. _

“I… that’s very kind of you,” she says, but she isn’t looking at him; he sees her confusion increase by 10%, to his dismay. “That’s… you’re too kind,” she tells him. Her finger traces the edge of the Detroit river absently. She still isn’t looking at him, and if she still had her LED, he knows it would be alternating between yellow and red.

Naturally, his systems react to her negative response the only way it knows how: 

With a truly ridiculous amount of errors_ . _

He can feel his programs glare with the warnings, with streams of _ negative attribution _ data, and he’s running background checks and revisiting everything he’s said to her in the last few minutes because the thought of Kara being troubled, because of him, makes his protocols go _ haywire _.

_ Warning: data overload detected. Prioritising protocols… _

_ Protocol selected: Ask subject about distress. _

“You seem upset. Have I done something wrong?” Connor asks as his ancillary stress level nicks steadily upwards by 8%.

“No, no, you’ve… You’ve done nothing wrong, Connor. In fact, I think you…” Kara pauses, then seems to backtrack on her statement as she inhales; a sign that her processors are working harder than usual, and she needs to intake air to cool down. Kara closes her eyes: 

“I’m just a housekeeping model with a child android. We’re only two, out of the two thousand here with us. Markus is leading a revolution, and you’re—” 

Kara pauses. Connor watches her processors overrun with data, and he’s overcome with the urge to connect to her right here and now, to understand her internal data input and outflow. To understand what’s troubling her.

That would be intrusive, so he doesn’t. He simply waits for her to continue.

“You’re _ you, _” she adds, looking at him now. She still looks confused. “I appreciate that you want to help us, but... I just can’t imagine why you’d want to. Not when you can do so much more for our people, if you were to stay.”

It’s Connor’s turn to be confused. Didn’t he just answer this?

.:.

“I feel responsible for you both,” he replies, matter of fact, reiterating his previous words. “I'd much rather know that you’re safe, and not in an android camp somewhere, waiting to be deactivated. Markus has all the help he can—”

“You’re an advanced prototype!” Kara suddenly interrupts, a notch more emphatic than previously, because her processors can’t catch up with her programs data and it’s _ stressing her out _ . “You’re the best that CyberLife has ever produced; there is _ no one _like you. I don’t know of another RK800 walking amongst us and I would feel…”

_ Guilt. I would feel guilty for taking you away, _ she thinks, the word forming around her ancillary programs like a baby virus, ready to attack her with negative associations… negative _ feelings. _

After all, who is _ she _ to deserve the protection of a model like Connor? The _ most advanced _prototype of them all?

And _ of course _ she wouldn’t refuse it, if it meant higher chances that Alice would survive (Alice alone meant that she would accept all the help she can get), but… she’s still very much confused that Connor would think to offer in the first place. And if she could be honest with him, she is sad, and upset that she isn’t like him. Is nowhere _ near _like him.

“Feel what?”

Connor breaks her reverie, and she tries to finish her thought, she _ does, _ but her processors—her _ deviancy— _have created so many internal layers of code, her programs seem to tangle around each other. 

She opens her mouth, to no words.

Suddenly, she feels it: fresh lines of protocol snapping into place, like a migraine that sneaks up between her ears.

_ Warning: new program detected. _

_ New program initialising… _

Like a tidal wave, sudden and surprising, _ negative sensory data _ assaults her, building up to a kind of pressure behind her temples, crest after crest. The same pain she’d felt before, now triggered to be officially part of her programming. She closes her eyes, and inhales at the influx of… unpleasantness.

_ Warning: systems at 68% overdrive. _

.:.

Connor reads her stress level jump up with no pretext, no warnings _ at all, _ increasing by about 40% in less than ten seconds. 

He moves closer to her, as though pulled by instinct. By his very own deviancy, urgent and demanding because: _ Well, shit. _

_ Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong. _

(_ Worry, _ is the word that his social relations program provides; he’s suddenly annoyed that deviancy has decided to code _ a whole new emotion _ into his programs _ , _while Kara is about to enter critical stress levels. It is neither rational, nor sensibly timed. He’ll have to debug himself later.)

“Kara,” he says, reaching out to hold her shoulders. He knows that the _ worry _is showing expressly on his face; he doesn’t care. His head ducks down, tries to read into her optics but they are moving fast beneath closed eyelids, a frown pinching her features…

It would look like the human facial expression for pain, but androids don’t feel pain.

Androids aren’t _ supposed _to feel pain.

“I’m fine,” she says, most definitely in a _ not-fine _tone of voice.

_ Error: conclusion not consistent with current data. _

_ Warning: subject’s stress levels increasing... _

He’d be insulted to know that she lies to him a lot, but now’s not the time.

“Kara, please look at me. I need to read your optics.”

She opens her eyes but she does not look at him; her gaze remains fixed to somewhere on his left, a tight attempt at schooling her features. The frown sits on her brows though, and Connor still reads an alarmingly high stress rate from what he can gauge off her systems, her optics practically screaming at him, her inhales and exhales becoming deeper, faster, taking on a life of their own.

_ Warning: subject’s stress levels increasing... _

In a flash decision triggered by his worry, he touches her temple where her LED once was. But he doesn’t fade his synthskin, not yet.

“May I?” he asks.

She nods once, a small downward tilt to her chin. He fades his synthskin and connects.

.:.

_ RK800 requesting for access… _

Kara takes a deep sigh, before granting him a limited-access connection.

_ Access granted… _

_ RK800 requesting to run diagnostics… _

_ Request accepted. _

_ Running diagnostics... _

She watches part of Connor’s LED, peeking underneath his beanie. It shifts from blue to a bright yellow with a rhythmic turning, his gaze blank as he zones out and into her systems; she can feel him like a current inside her, doing background program checks, parsing through her data influx and processing cycles. And while she has limited his access to hide some of her more personal thoughts and memories, she can still feel him rooting through all of her: an electric line of code systematically coursing through protocols, clearing and fixing little dents in her data as he runs just beneath her synthskin.

“_ Your programs are tangled,” _ he says, a message to her system. His gaze is still blank and… _ worried, _she sees. Like he hasn’t found what he’s looking for yet, not quite.

Until she feels him prod into her new program.

Kara winces like reflex when Connor attempts to disentangle the very new program that had initialised in her software just now; she didn’t want him to read into it, into the influx of data forming new protocols that aren’t supposed to exist. But he was bound to come upon it. It was far too much, far too big to hide.

She also winces because the prodding makes the pain sharper.

“What’s this?” he asks, trying to make sense of the raw data.

_ Warning: systems overload. Manual processing required... _

“Nothing,” she immediately replies, and her hand comes up to grasp at his wrist where his fingers touch her temple. What feels like _ shame _floods her, compounding her headache, and she is about to wrench his hand off, cut their connection—

But he prods just a little further, unknowingly, and the pain shoots straight up her exo-skull like an invisible knife.

_ WARNING: Systems overload. Programmatic errors detected. WARNING: Systems overload... _

The negative sensory data—the _ excruciation— _branches like lightning all throughout her body.

_ WARNING: Systems overload… WARNING: Systems overload... _

Her systems jar; she takes a sharp inhale;

_ WARNING: Systems overload… WARNING: Systems overload... _

The sensory input continues to slice through her. Her chest crowds, overheats. Her eyes shut tightly.

_ WARNING: Systems overload… WARNING: Systems overload... _

“_ Kara, _ ” Connor immediately backtracks in her systems, and Kara doesn’t know when it happens but his other hand has come up behind her neck, and she’s being guided to sit down and _ it’s too much, it’s too much, _the errors flashing through, her legs buckling where her control glitches. Her body feels incomprehensible; like all her biocomponents numb in pain response, and she doesn’t know how to move them, and there’s a blank space where her functional protocols should be. 

Like she hit a wave of data that jumbled her systems all at once, and—

_ WARNING: Systems overload… _

_ Data output initialising… _

_ Output successful. Sensory data transfer in progress... _

She feels it more than anything: Connor siphoning the data slowly out of her, and her chaotic protocols start to stabilize, her chest cooling down as she regulates her breathing pattern. 

_ Systems stabilisation: 12% complete... _

When Kara opens her eyes—after a moment or an hour, she’s not sure, she’s not sure _ at all _—she is sitting on the floor. Both of Connor’s hands are holding her upright, one behind her ear, on the side of her neck, the other grasping her arm. He is kneeling in front of her, eyes ducking down to catch her gaze.

He looks… rather upset.

“_ Why didn’t you tell me that you have so much unprocessed data?” _

The message is sent to her systems; she can feel him, still in her coding, still reading and assessing her protocols as the diagnostic runs its course. Still transferring some of her data into his processors, so she wouldn’t have to feel them as much.

_ Deviant hunter, now also a painkiller _ . _ What’s next, bodyguard? _ Kara thinks, a slightly bitter and sad thought materialising out of nowhere. She almost laughs. Almost. 

But Connor is oblivious; his eyes fix on something at the top of her head. There’s a bothered look on his face. He then runs a hand over a part of her scalp, like fixing hair. 

The sensation trickles from her synthskin to the back of her exo-skull, an electric shiver across her systems. She hides it _ completely _ from their shared connection, suddenly terrified of how _ he _could read her raw coding probably better than her own processors. 

_ Sensory data transfer in progress. Systems stabilisation: 18% complete... _

“_ You seem to have developed a pain reception program, Kara,” _he tells her through their connection, with as much gentleness as raw code can communicate. 

She tries to avoid his eyes; her reaction borne out of a social relations protocol much like an avoidance impulse. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t want him to look at her. He’s already inside her head. But all she knows is that deviancy has installed too many layers into her conscious protocols and it _ hurts. _

But the hand by her neck moves to the side of her face, and she has no choice but to follow its nudge and turn her head to look at him.

Connor is still the picture of aggravated distress.

(Shoved in the background of her consciousness is a painful thought, pun not intended: her model, AX400, is one of the earlier mid-level models, equipped with only the most basic of processing power. The pain is intense because there’s simply nowhere else for the negative data to go.

She doesn’t have enough processing power. Unlike the more advanced models. Unlike _ him. _

It is… upsetting, almost shameful. It _ hurts. _ For all that she would like to be recognized as an individual, as a free-thinking being, she can’t help but wish she were good enough. More capable, more _ worthy _, somehow, to merit what Markus and the others are fighting for.

Not that she’d ever reveal such thoughts to Connor.)

_ Sensory data transfer in progress. Systems stabilisation: 46% complete... _

The pain ebbs away, slowly at first, leaking out of her connection with him, while he sits patiently in front of her. When her systems stabilisation reaches 80% and her full control returns to her, she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and cuts off their connection.

.:.

_ Sensory data transfer in progress. Remote systems stabilisation: 80% complete... _

_ Error: AX400 disconnected. _

He doesn’t try to hide his surprise when Kara suddenly shuts him out.

He wishes that the wave of _ negative attribution _doesn’t feel overwhelming, but it does.

“Kara?” 

She stands up, suddenly and quickly, dusting off her pants and looking anywhere but him; her body language, her every expression, read like a very broken sort of distress; her eyes dart to the table, then around the room. Light hits her blonde hair and it gleams, but briefly, before she’s rushing. 

He is still kneeling on the floor, stunned, as he watches her scurry towards the door, heading out of the room in a hurry. Not once does she look back.

She exits and leaves him with nothing but unprocessable data points, an un-accomplishable mission, and terabytes of _ negative attribution _ code that lines his thinking process with a pervasive and steady ache. He sits for a while, LED spinning yellow. Then red.

He is… negatively affected, the conclusion that _ Kara rejected him _ glossed with a shiny coat of _ What did I do wrong? Why can’t I understand what happened? _, and his processors do nothing but try to comb through these haywire lines of unprocessed data.

_ Hurt, _his dictionary tells him flatly, finally, after some time has passed. He is hurt.

The negative attribution floating around his programs does not ease up, even if he has labeled it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is gently inspired by one of my other fandoms' (ADLOCK) masterpieces.
> 
> It means "one of a kind".
> 
> I love these two babies. I just love them. 
> 
> Dontcha just love sum hurt/comfort angst with a bit of miscommunication thrown in? Yay for pain!
> 
> Go on, throw in a wishlist of all the kinds of scenes you wish we'd seen Connor and Kara in. ;) LET'S TALK ABOUT THESE BEAUTIFUL ANDROID BABEYS PLS
> 
> <3 for reading!!! Thank you!


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